We have spoken on many occasions of the need to achieve high economic growth as an absolute priority for our country. The annual address for 2003 set… - Vladimir Putin

Товарищ волк знает, кого кушать. Кушает, и никого не слушает, и слушать, судя по всему, не собирается.

[About Ukrainians] They will not exist for a month if the money and, in a broad sense, run out. Everything would be over in a month or two.

The CIA did its job to complete the coup <nowiki>[</nowiki>Euromaidan<nowiki>]</nowiki>. I think one of the Deputy Secretaries of State said that it cost a large sum of money, almost 5 billion dollars. But the political mistake was colossal! Why would they have to do that? All this could have been done legally, without victims, without military action, without losing Crimea. We would have never considered to even lift a finger if it hadn’t been for the bloody developments on Maidan. Because we agreed with the fact that after the collapse of the Soviet Union our borders should be along the borders of former Union’s republics. We agreed to that. But we never agreed to NATO’s expansion and moreover we never agreed that Ukraine would be in NATO. We did not agree to NATO bases there without any discussion with us. For decades we kept urging them: don’t do this, don’t do that.